Albert BESNARD (1849-1934)

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5000 - 7000 EUR
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Result : 5 000EUR
Albert BESNARD (1849-1934)
The zebus and the woman in red sari in India. Oil on canvas. Signed lower left. 83 x 105 cm. Slight wear and scratches. Albert Besnard is a major artist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Born into a family of artists, he was trained at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris with illustrious masters such as Alexandre Cabanel or Sébastien Cornu and won the Prix de Rome in 1874. He later became director of the French Academy in Rome and then director of the National School of Fine Arts. From his stay in Italy he kept his taste for travel and "the nostalgia for the blue sky and the southern sun" which he continued to indulge during a first trip to Morocco and Spain with Jules Cheret in 1890, then to Algeria in 1893. In 1910 he embarked for India and this trip marked a real turning point in his career. Embellishing his palette with rich shades of red ochre and lush vegetation, this period was an oasis of serenity in the artist's hectic life that allowed him to develop new iconographies marked by exoticism. Upon his return, he exhibited his Indian paintings at the Galerie Georges Petit and met with consecration. In the catalog of this exhibition "Journey to India" we find a work entitled "a herd of zebus on the road from Agra to Fatehpur-Sihkri (sunset)" which could lead us to believe that the painting we are presenting, or at least a very similar subject, was presented during this pivotal event.
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